Poison
by Sardonic Kender Smile
Summary: Lyn's been getting weaker and weaker, recently. Kent and Sain, heads of security, have no idea what's going on...until they remember that something very similar had happened to her grandfather. AU, KentxLyn. For the Circle's second Livejournal challenge.


_A/N: Once again, a KentxLyn fic without my explicit consent…can't say I mind, though. The good ol' KentxLyn Circle had another challenge (remember the Drunk!fics? Man, those were the days…). This time the theme was "poison." I happily accept the award for Most Original Title. Thank you, adoring public._

_Naturally, with my being in Japan for the past five weeks and the fact that now that I'm home I'm trying to spend every second I can away from my house, I hereby present a fic that is rushed, undeveloped, and ridiculous. However, that also hopefully means that it's fun. And either way, it's KentxLyn~!_

_**Poison**_

"Must we have a security briefing this early?" Lyndis asked, yawning in a very un-princesslike manner as she slouched at the head of the large wooden table.

Kent glanced down at his watch—a bulky digital that displayed the time in green numerals that also glowed in the dark. (Sain often made fun of him for the watch—"What are you, _eleven?_"—but Kent took comfort in the fact that he was _always_ prepared to know what time it was, even at night. Sain had to waste precious seconds taking out his cell phone to obtain the same information.)

"Princess," he said, as politely as he could, "It is noon."

"It's too early for me, too," Sain said, as much to defend his obvious hangover than to defend Lyn. Kent glared across the table at him.

The three were seated in a meeting room in Lyn's palace. A computer and projector were up against one wall, and a vast, polished table took up most of the rest of the room. Although it was usually a place reserved for mass security meetings and thus seemed far too big for just the three present, Kent had chosen it for the briefing because Lyn liked the windows in it—which made up the majority of the eastern-facing wall.

Midday sunlight poured in through the windows. If Kent had a secret from his liege—which of course he didn't, as the chief of her security staff!—it would have to be how much he admired the sheen her emerald-coloured hair took when the sun struck it.

But this day…this day, he realized, her hair didn't have much of a sheen at all. Her bangs hung limp and lifeless, and her usually high ponytail was knotted instead down by her neck, as if she hadn't had the strength to lift her arms up that morning. Kent immediately felt himself slip into his guard-mode, taking in every detail the way he was trained to do. Her skin was too pale. Her eyes were bloodshot and her eyelids sagging. She leaned forward onto her elbows, rather than sitting up straight.

Kent stood immediately, hearing his black suit crinkle crisply with the suddenness of the movement.

"Princess Lyndis," he said urgently, "Are you feeling all right?"

She looked up at him with her now-familiar _You're-Going-Too-Far-Kent_ look on her face, but he didn't care, just as he hadn't cared any previous time she had shot him such a look. If this was his job, he was going to do it _right!_

"Do you feel ill in any way?" he prodded her.

She shook her head. "No?"

"Any sneezing?"

"No."

"Coughing?"

"No-"

"Fever? Chills? Headaches or muscle pai—"

"Kent!" she said impatiently, "I'm just really tired!"

"…If you insist," he muttered in return, and with a great effort, sank himself back into his chair.

"You should get more sleep, Princess," Sain told her.

She rubbed her eyes. "But I got plenty of sleep! I've been falling asleep early every night this week, and I still wake up tired!"

_Truth,_ Kent thought to himself—for half the time, she'd been falling asleep on his shoulder.

She had been spending a lot of time with him, lately, now that he thought about it…often coming into his room late at night with a foreign movie he just _had_ to see ("Chill out once in a while, you don't have to work all night!"). They were usually in Sacaen, and sometimes there were subtitles, but Kent liked it better when there weren't—because then Lyn would translate to him, and he could just close his eyes and listen to her voice.

He tried to tell himself that it was okay, the two of them just hanging out. After all, he was head of security, and if she was always with him, she was always safe! But a part of him enjoyed her company a little too much. She sometimes kissed his cheek. She allowed him to put his arm around her. It all felt so _natural_; it made his heart do happy, giddy swoops in his chest, but Kent also knew that such a thing could not last. She was a princess and would one day be married off to a prince, not to a security guard. It wasn't the dark ages anymore, sure, but she didn't need any more tabloid headlines about her—the fact that her mother had eloped to Sacae and birthed her there was scandal enough.

So, it was with a heavy heart each night that Kent brushed his lips against Lyn's hair, prodded her awake, and guided her sleepy self back across the palace to her proper room. He wondered why she hadn't been able to stay awake for a whole movie, recently…she _loved_ those movies. Last night she'd even fallen asleep mid-sentence, translating for him, and it hadn't even been 9 PM yet. And she was still tired, after sleeping until nearly noon?

"Is it really necessary to have this briefing, anyway?" Lyn asked, slumping further over the table.

"We have to have briefings before every public event," Kent reminded her sternly.

"We want the parade tomorrow to be safe for you!" Sain amended with a cheery grin. "Don't you want to have a good time at the parade?"

Lyn rolled her eyes. "You guys, please. It's not like an assassin is going to leap out of the crowd and shoot a crossbow at me or something."

"No," said Kent tersely, "It will be a sniper rifle. Much more accurate."

Lyn rolled her eyes again.

The security briefing continued, however, and they were done within the hour. Lyn yawned as she pushed herself up from the table.

"Well," she said, "you guys have a good day…I'm going to take a nap."

"A nap?" Sain asked incredulously.

"She's tired," Kent snapped at his second-in-command, although Lyn's comment certainly baffled him as well. "She can nap if she wants to."

"Can I nap if I want to?" Sain asked, stretching his arms up and arching his back.

"No," answered Kent crisply, "you have paperwork to help me finish."

"I haaate the paperwork," Sain moaned, but Kent ignored him—he was too busy watching Lyndis wave goodbye at them both and leave the room on shaky legs.

* * *

The next day, she wouldn't talk to him.

He had been following her around with his handy-dandy red clipboard, reading off last-minute notes about the parade and how her day would commence afterward. She didn't speak a single word, only nodding from time to time.

Kent was worried—why wouldn't she speak to him? Was she angry? Had he done something to offend her, yesterday? Still, business came first, so he waited until he had gone through all of his notes before he stopped in the middle of the hallway, which made Lyn stop too. She just looked at him, a bit confused.

"Princess," he began, "I'm sorry to be abrupt, but…are you upset with me for something? I hope I didn't bother you, yesterday, when I kept asking you if you were sick-"

"What?" Lyn asked, so incredulously that the word came out whispered.

Kent felt himself start to blush. "I just…I don't know. You left, and then I haven't seen you since then, but now you won't talk to me so I just wanted to make sure that I haven't—"

Lyn shook her head violently, cutting him off. "My throat is sore today," she explained hoarsely, putting her fingertips to her neck.

Kent's blush was now full-flame. "Oh! Oh…I wish you had said something earlier, Princess! I'll call Dr. Pent right away—"

He reached into his pocket, but before he could pull out his cell phone Lyn had rasped, "Wait!" and grabbed his wrist. Her fingers were warm as they closed over his skin, and Kent shivered once without meaning to.

"I'm not sick," she said determinedly, although her voice sounded like someone had force-fed her gravel and left furrows in the lining of her throat. "Don't call the doctor."

"Princess Lyndis, you're clearly—"

"Don't…call…the doctor," she insisted, with great emphasis. "Please."

Her eyes locked on his, but not with pleading or desperation…instead, Kent saw her fierce determination looking back at him, which was in fact rather intimidating.

"…Why not?" he finally managed to ask.

She scrunched up her nose—in disgust, Kent knew, but he thought it made her look somewhat adorable all the same. "I just hate doctors. Cold stethoscopes and creepy white coats and the constant smell of disinfectant…it's just really weird."

"But doctors are there to make you feel better—" Kent tried to explain, but she just shook her head.

"I hate taking pills. I hate getting shots. Even checkups creep me out. And it all seems so unnecessary…I probably just have a cold. It's just a sore throat; it'll go away in a couple of days _without_ a doctor's help. Why make unnecessary trouble?"

Her voice was almost inaudible by the end of her short speech, but Kent couldn't bring himself to contradict her. She just looked so…uncomfortable. And he didn't want to make things worse for her, especially if she was already tired and busy.

She suddenly removed her hand from his wrist, as if _his_ skin had been hot instead of hers, as if he had burned her. The movement surprised Kent—he had forgotten that she was still touching him, and the sudden absence of her touch bothered him.

"Okay, Princess," he said finally. "If you insist, I won't call Dr. Pent."

She smiled at him and whispered, "Thanks."

Kent turned to go, knowing that he had to meet up with Sain and get back to his other duties, but after a moment's thought he looked back over his shoulder.

"Is a sore throat all that's bothering you, Princess?" he asked her.

She pulled her lips tight and looked away, rubbing one arm. "I mean…I just sort-of ache all over. I think even my muscles are tired. But a nap will fix everything, don't worry." She shot him another smile.

"Okay…" Kent said slowly. "But…if you get any worse…you'll let me know, won't you?"

She nodded.

It was hard, but Kent forced himself to turn back around and leave. Something, he knew, just wasn't right. But he couldn't quite put his finger on it.

* * *

"So didja call Dr. Pent?" was the first thing Sain asked as Kent entered the office they both shared—windowless, colourless, and devoid of all distractions, just the way Kent liked it, although Sain complained about its "boringness" every day. "She looked a little under the weather."

"She didn't want me to," Kent answered wearily, and sat down heavily at his desk. It was with a bit of dismay that he glanced down—he liked all his papers in nice little stacks, but whenever Sain had anything he needed the Chief of Security to look at, he dumped it all very unceremoniously on Kent's desk in a big pile. Kent was pretty sure that his partner did it on purpose in the hopes that he would have an OCD breakdown or something…it would break the humdrum routine of the day, certainly.

"But isn't she sick?" Sain asked.

"I don't even know." Kent sank his chin into his hand. "It looks that way to me, but she keeps insisting she's fine. Just tired."

"What could be making her _this_ tired?" Sain threw his hands up. Then, struck with a sudden thought, he kicked his spinny chair back from his desk and rolled over to Kent's side of the room. "I bet _you_ wouldn't know…wouldja, Kent? Eh? Eeeehhhh?"

He had started poking his partner's shoulders. With a sharp, "Sain!", Kent executed an excellent karate chop that nearly propelled Sain back to his desk. One didn't acquire his position without twenty-odd years of martial arts training, no siree.

Sain rubbed his wounded arm, which he had used to block Kent's chop with (one didn't acquire the second-in-command position without adequate training too, he supposed), whined about not being able to make a joke, and glumly returned to his own pile of paperwork. The room grew silent. Kent found himself staring off into space, thinking about the recent predicament that was Lyndis.

It all seemed…hauntingly familiar to him, somehow, the more that he thought about it. Her lethargy, her constant exhaustion. The muscle weakness and damaged throat. Something was wrong, it was _so wrong_, and he almost had put all the pieces together—

"Lord Hausen!" he gasped, jumping to his feet so quickly that he knocked his chair over.

Sain glanced over his shoulder from his desk and raised an eyebrow.

"No…" he said slowly, "I'm Sain."

"Not you, idiot!" Kent began to pace, nearly tripping over his upturned chair. "I've just realized—this is exactly what happened to Lord Hausen! Don't you remember? He got weaker and weaker, and we thought he was just getting old, getting sick…"

"But he was being poisoned!" Sain finished, his eyes widening in astonishment.

"Do you think that could be it?" Kent demanded. "Poison?"

"I-I don't know! Who could ever want to kill our lovely princess?"

"Did you study politics in high school, or did you study politics in high school?" Kent asked scathingly. "It could be anyone! For any number of reasons! The real question is, _how are they getting to her_?"

"I dunno," Sain said, still quite wide-eyed. He looked back to the papers on his desk—various maps of different parts of the castle. "I thought we were doing a pretty good job."

"Not good enough." Kent's fists clenched at his sides. "And it's such a common tactic…using the exact same poison because they think they know we know they wouldn't think to try that again…"

"I'm so confused," Sain mumbled, and clutched at his head. "That sounded like Portuguese."

"But we can't be sure yet." Kent forced himself to calm down, forced himself to unclench his fists. He took a deep breath. "It's just a hunch. We can't be sure of anything, yet."

"But Kent," Sain whispered weakly, "we also shouldn't take any chances."

Kent thought of how Lord Hausen had looked, when he had summoned him to find his granddaughter. The old king had been bedridden already, gaunt and withered by something much more sinister than time. Kent had thought him sick.

Kent had never been more wrong.

And now it was Lyn's face he saw instead of her grandfather's, Lyn's beautiful face, chalked white by poison and pulled tight with pain. Even though the image was only in his head, he closed his eyes tightly against it anyway.

"You're right," he told Sain. "We shouldn't take any chances."

* * *

By the very next day, security was doubled at all doors. Specialists were assigned to inspect all of Lyn's food. After a lot of hassle with General Wallace (paperwork, paperwork all the time; it was like running laps around all of Caelin to get through Wallace!), the military dispatched a couple of spies to see if the perpetrator was within the castle. Everything that Kent could think of had been covered, recovered, and then checked a third time.

"But should we tell the princess?" Sain asked him, his lips tightening on one side as he thought.

Kent pondered that for a moment. He didn't want to cause her any undue worry; she was already bothered enough as it was…during the parade it had been apparent that she was not only very tired, but also very weak. And yet…Kent's memories of Lyn were not those of a woman who wanted to be shielded. Heck, when she had finally found that treasonous, poisoning great-uncle of hers, she had been the one to kill him. He had seen her pull the trigger, no regrets, no fear, just _boom_.

"I think she has a right to know," he told Sain finally. "So that she knows what she's up against."

"Alrighty." Sain sighed heavily. "I still think she's sick, personally…I wish she'd just let us call the doctor."

Lyn's reluctant eyes peered out at Kent through memory. He drew his eyebrows together. Although he knew that doctors made her uncomfortable and he didn't want her to be uncomfortable, the situation at hand was a little more important than a comfort level.

_Hopefully, once we tell her, she'll understand._

"Call the doctor anyway," Kent ordered. "Just in case."

* * *

It was with a bit of guilt that Kent went to go find Lyndis a couple of hours later. He told Sain he was going to patrol around the castle ("And you should do the same, gosh darn it!"), but he knew that he needed to find Lyn first. He had a lot to tell her, and none of it was good. Quite frankly, he wasn't even sure how to say what he needed to.

_Yeah, so, I called the doctor anyway even though you hate doctors. Also, we think you're being poisoned. Surprise!_

He sighed heavily and tried to think faster. He was only a flight of stairs and a hallway from Lyn's rooms…unfortunately for Kent, Lyn herself suddenly rounded the corner on the other side of the hall and appeared. Walking toward the staircase from the other end—or, as soon as she saw him, at least, walking toward _him_.

She smiled at him in greeting, but it was a weak smile. She didn't say anything, prompting him to believe that he throat was still sore. Worst of all, he noticed, the sides of her neck were a little swollen.

_Her lymph nodes are inflamed? What_ is _this_?

"Princess," he greeted her, as gently as he could. "Are you well?"

She shrugged with one shoulder, an "it's-nothing" shrug, which Kent didn't like one bit.

"I…have some things to tell you," he forced out.

"What?" she asked him. He was slightly relieved to hear that she still had her voice, but it sounded like it really hurt to talk.

"Princess Lyndis…you may have noticed a few…changes this morning," he began carefully.

"Like extra guards by my door and different people bringing me my food?" she asked, hoarsely but astutely.

Kent swallowed hard, nodded. "Yeah. Well…it's just that…you haven't been feeling yourself lately, and Sain and I were trying to figure out what the matter was—that's our job, you know—and…your symptoms are all very similar to His Majesty's. When he was being…poisoned."

"My grandfather?" Lyn said softly. "You think that…I'm being poisoned like he was?"

There was a new and sudden look in her eyes, something fragmented and sharp like broken glass. Like the bottle-green of her eyes had smashed.

"It's not certain," Kent was quick to assure her. "It's just that Sain and I don't want to take any chances. And for that same reason…we've also called the doctor for you. Just in case. He said that he will be by your rooms at four o'clock, if that's convenient for you."

She didn't say anything. She just stared at him. Kent suddenly felt absolutely awful, and dropped his head.

"Oh, please don't be upset, Princess," he said to the floor. "I'm so sorry—incredibly sorry. I'm just trying to do my job…I just…need to look out for you."

"It's not that," she murmured.

Kent slowly raised his eyes to hers again. "Then…do you mind if I ask what the matter is?"

She was silent for a long, long time. Then, just as Kent was about to prompt her, she whispered, "I'm…scared."

He froze.

Lyndis, he knew, was a woman who had _never_ been scared—or at least, if she ever was, she hid it extremely well. She had stepped into her role as Caelin's princess, a staggering feat, with calmness and composure. She laughed in the face of her own security briefings. And when she found out her great-uncle wanted her dead, she never freaked out…she just resolved, flinty-eyed, to get to her grandfather.

_I'm scared._

The words still rang in Kent's ears, sounding so small and timid and unlike Lyndis that they even scared him, a little bit.

"W-why, Princess?" he asked with a weak smile. "You'll be fine. We're inspecting your food, and security has doubled, and—"

"But Kent, being poisoned _hurts!_" she insisted. "I…when I lived in Sacae…when my tribe was slaughtered by the Taliver—"

"I read about it all in the papers," Kent told her gently, trying to spare her from bringing back any painful memories.

Lyn shook her head fiercely. "You don't even _know!_ It wasn't just some article in a paper—they didn't just wipe out the Lorca! It was so _premeditated_, Kent…they poisoned our water, first." She looked at him, her green eyes suddenly too huge and too hollow in her face. "They poisoned our water, and we all began to waste away. And it hurts. I don't want to go through that again."

Kent's heart dropped into his stomach like a stone, which also hurt. He ached to put his arms around her, not knowing if it was proper, but as he half-reached for her she helped him by sinking into his embrace and wrapping her arms tightly around his waist.

"You're _not_ going through that again," he whispered fiercely. "I am here. Sain is here. We're stopping whatever this is, right here, right now. You won't be hurt…I _promise_ you."

"I trust you," she breathed into his shirt. She looked up at him then, grinning somewhat weakly. "I don't know how much I trust Sain, but I trust you."

She reached her hand up and touched his cheek gently. Kent's heart leapt back up from his stomach, but it leapt too far and now it was lodged in his throat and Oh Elimine he knew what was coming next—

Lyn tilted her head up and kissed him.

For a moment, Kent was too stunned to even think. Luckily, his body reacted all by itself, his arms tightening around her and his eyes closing in bliss. After a moment he dared to use his tongue, parting her lips, and she accepted his advance eagerly.

Kent knew very little of kissing, besides what he had gathered from the badly-written romance novel rough drafts that Sain sometimes shoved his way ("You're my best friend! If _you_ don't read it, an editor never will!")…but oddly, the moment was everything the rough drafts said it would be. His heart was beating as fast as a hummingbird's, his fingertips tingled with a new sort of fire, he was suddenly able to smell Lyn's shampoo, and even more than that, he felt…happy. Completely happy.

That, of course, was when he realized that he had his tongue in his liege's mouth and had absolutely _no_ idea what he was doing. He jerked his head back with a gasp. Lyn was smiling.

"I-I-I'm so sorry," Kent stammered. "I shouldn't have…I mean…I…I don't even know."

He lowered his eyes to the ground. Lyn kissed his forehead.

"Don't be sorry," she said softly, "I started it. And if you don't mind, I'd like to try that again another time."

Kent was unable to hold back a strangled laugh. "M-mind? No…no, I wouldn't mind. But Princess—"

"I am still tired," she interrupted him. His eyes shot back to hers to find that she was smiling mischievously. "I am going to take another nap."

She broke free from his arms—Kent hadn't even been aware that he was still holding her—and walked to the staircase. Kent just watched her retreating figure until she was out of sight, and even then he found himself somewhat frozen in the hallway. He didn't know what to do. Or where to go. Or _anything_.

"All quiet on the eastern front," a voice sounded pretentiously, and Sain suddenly rounded the corner behind Kent. "You find anything on your patrol?"

"No," Kent said, but the word escaped cracked and hoarse. Clearing his throat with all the dignity he had left, he lowered his voice half an octave and repeated himself.

Sain's face appeared in his field of vision, grinning like a cat that had discovered a tank full of angel fish where the sofa used to be.

"Oh, Kent," he said lightly, "You're bright red."

"It's nothing," Kent tried to say sternly.

"Naawwwww," Sain drawled, "You gotta tell me what happened to you!"

"Nothing happe-!"

Kent eventually broke as Sain began to whoop, "Nooope, nooope, tell me what happened!" and jab him repeatedly in the ribs with his elbow. Right before he was jostled smack into the stone wall, Kent was able to grouse,

"Your damn romance novel happened!"

Sain stopped immediately, the smile slipping from his face.

"Wait," he whispered. His eyes darkened with understanding…and then promptly lost said understanding, as he always did. "Huh?"

"A kiss!" Kent blurted, holding an elbow out defensively as if he expected Sain to start battering him again. "She just came up and…Sain, she was scared, so I held her, and I told her we'd take care of her, and she just _kissed_ me."

The fact that he had never said Lyn's name didn't matter—Sain still knew immediately.

"Partner!" he gushed, now grinning that mischievous grin again as he flung an arm around his younger friend, "Look at you! Was that your first kiss? Actually, don't tell me; I don't even want to _know_ if you've lived this long without a kiss. Also, you can't even tell me you didn't even know that was coming. Although maybe you didn't, because you're so flustered. I've never even _seen_ you spazzing out like this. Like—"

"Sain!" Kent cut him off abruptly, feeling himself stiffen.

"Well," his partner continued as if he hadn't even been interrupted, "What are you going to do about it?"

"I…I don't know." He swallowed hard. "What _can_ I do?"

"Don't let her be poisoned," Sain answered cheerfully. Then he clapped Kent on the back—a little too hard—and turned around to go back to his patrol. Kent continued to stand in the hallway. Fear for Lyn wrapped cold tentacles around his high-floating heart and dragged it down, down, down.

* * *

He had work to do.

He had work to do.

He had work to—

Kent fiercely squashed the voice in his head. It was a guilty voice, but his worry far outweighed it. Even the _other_ voice in his head, the ever-present one that said that _Sain_ had work to do, was drowned out. Kent knew that Sain was also anxiously anticipating what Pent had to say, and he just didn't have the heart to send him away. He was certainly worried, too.

The two were standing and fidgeting outside the door to Lyn's receiving room. Technically they had no business being there, but they knew that Pent was still inside and they both wanted to hear his diagnosis first-hand.

_Poison_, Kent kept thinking, with every painful, thudding beat of his heart. _Poison, poison. Poor Lyndis. I hope Pent can find out what it is…it'll be much easier to track if he can diagnose the poison…_

"This is taking forever," Sain moaned, resting his head against the wall.

Kent checked his glow-in-the-dark watch. "It's only been fifteen minutes."

"Longest. Fifteen. Minutes. Ever." Sain was rolling his head back and forth. Kent had known him since they were both little kids, and he knew that had they been in elementary school again, Sain would probably be lolling around on the floor right about now.

He opened his mouth to retort, but just then the door clicked open and Pent stepped out, medical bag in hand.

"What sort of poison is it, Doctor?" Sain blurted.

Pent carefully shut the door before he answered, putting a long finger over his lips to indicate that Lyn had gone back to sleep.

"Should we get an analyst?" Kent asked, taking the doctor's silence as a bad sign.

"It's not poison," Pent finally, as if he were trying very hard to keep from rolling his eyes. "She has mononucleosis."

"Mono?" Sain asked incredulously.

Kent was, at the same time, relieved and once again incredibly worried. "Will she be all right, doctor?"

"Of course," said Pent mildly. He produced a box of Tylenol from one of the pockets of his white lab coat, which he put into Kent's hand. "Make sure she gets lots of rest, drinks lots of fluids, and takes some of these when her throat hurts her. Oh, and she shouldn't do anything strenuous for a while—the fatigue will continue after the other symptoms disappear."

"So…it's not poison," said Sain with relief.

"No," Pent chuckled. "But mono might be even worse, in a sense…it's pretty contagious. You should make sure you're not standing too close to the princess when she coughs or sneezes, because it's transmitted through saliva." The doctor began to walk off with the business-as-usual aura that he always possessed, lifting a hand in farewell as he passed. "That's why they call it the Kissing Disease, you know!"

And then he was gone.

Kent stared dumbly after him. _The Kissing Disease?_ Suddenly he was pulled back into an earlier memory, holding Lyndis in the hallway, the touch of her hand, the warmth of her mouth—

His train of thought was broken as Sain promptly had the laughing fit to end all laughing fits.

"Bahaha! Kent, you're _screwed_!"

* * *

_A/N: Oh, crack endings. Gotta love them. Or not._


End file.
